Final-yr PG med exams to start on August 25: MUHS

Final-yr PG med exams to start on August 25: MUHS

Yogita Rao & Ranjan Dasgupta TNN

Mumbai:  11.07.2020

The Maharashtra University of Health Sciences on Friday released the much-awaited exam schedule for final-year postgraduate (allopathy) medical students. Exams for MS, MD, microbiology, biochemistry, and PG diploma in different courses are now scheduled to start from August 25.

The PG exams were earlier scheduled in May and were deferred twice due to the coronavirus pandemic. While the university had already announced the dates for undergraduate and postgraduate exams for medical and other health science courses for 70,000 students in August and September, allopathy students were concerned about the uncertainty over their exams and pursuit of super-specialty courses. Around 2,300 such students are in the frontline of the Covid battle, of which 950 are in Mumbai alone.

The controller of examinations for MUHS, Ajit Pathak, said the university had promised to give students at least 45 days of preparation time before the exams. “The PG allopathy students and their examiners were both on Covid duty since the beginning of the pandemic...Now, as the first-year students have started joining their respective colleges, senior students can be relieved. We have also given them a day’s break between exams,” said Pathak.

Resident doctors, however, are worried that the hospitals may not relieve them of Covid duty with immediate effect. Some of them are already in the duty chart prepared for the coming week.

The university had to announce the exam dates soon as several MD/MS students seek admissions to super-specialty courses and fellowships to pursue higher studies. NEET for superspecialty courses is scheduled in September.

Also, a PG student from KEM Hospital and GS Medical College had moved court seeking directions to MUHS to declare the dates and hold the exams. The student had secured admission for superspecialty course in a Chandigarh college and completion of the PG course was important for admissions. The state had assured the court that they will work out a policy for announcing the exam dates.